EDI Employer Toolkit

Problem: A lack of Equity, Diversity, and Inclusion documentation within the organization focused specifically on work-integrated learning.
Solution: A toolkit containing four documents each focused on a dufferebt part of the hiring and onboarding process and supported by scholarly research.

While the project was the brainchild of my fellow Co-op student, I was asked to join the (very small) team in November 2021. The concept was presented to me as a series of four documents, each dedicated to a different aspect of the hiring process and beyond, with the overall goal of educating employers on how to best approach work-integrated learning from an EDI-focused perspective. Overall, the project team consisted of two Co-op students (including me) and one Project Manager working on a freelance, part time basis.

As this was an internal project meant to be circulated within the Co-op department, I won’t be sharing many details or screenshots as I have for some other projects. Instead, I’m focusing on the work I did and the skills I gained throughout this project.

We began the project with research, as we wanted to be able to present employers with statistics and evidence-based results. While we believed employers should be building around an EDI framework out of the goodness of their heart, we were also aware employers would want to see how EDI can benefit their organization. As such, between myself and the other Co-op student, we collected and read over 60 sources on EDI with a focus on application in work-integrated learning spaces. From there, we compiled our notes and organized our findings into categories and subcategories. Our main categories corresponded to the four areas of the job process we identified, while our subcategories related to three overarching themes we had identified as a team.

Once we had arrived at an outline for each document using the research and categories we had collected, we presented the information we had into a presentation for a department focus group. The focus group primarily consisted of External Relations Officers, as they were the people with the most direct contact with employers and subsequently had the best idea of what employers would want in a project of this nature. Based on the meeting minutes we collected during the focus group and our team debrief afterwards, we revised our research and outlines and began the drafting process.

We split the writing process equally, with each of us taking care of the copy for two documents, and then editing the other’s work. We went through three rounds of editing between the two of us before having the drafts sent to the Project Manager we were working with (a former Marketing and Communications Coordinator), after which I was tasked with handling the final round of editing. This phase was focused on improving concision (and subsequently reducing the word count), and I ultimately managed to cut each document down by over 1000 words (and saved us quite a bit of money on printing).

The creation of this resource was my first experience working on a full project from beginning to end, and it taught me a lot about project timelines and iterative processes. We had very defined stages and roles that we communicated about frequently and documented through flowcharts and tables that helped organize our time and workflow. Additionally, this project gave me the opportunity to develop skills related to tailoring my writing for specific audiences, in this case in the area of B2B communication. Overall, I not only improved transferrable skills related to research and communication, but gained confidence in my ability to develop and maintain project organization and success.